Pedestrian with headphones on wandering all over the road (a road, not a path). Road is one way with a high rock face on one side, and a moving van parked on the other side plus a footpath, so only about 2 meters of road space left. Pedestrian almost takes out cyclist in front of me by randomly suddenly angling towards the rock face (maybe he saw a nice rock). You'd think he'd then not walk in the middle of the road and pay a bit more attention. But then he goes left. And then right as I'm approaching.

AZ time

...and he doesn't hear it from 2 feet behind him After a while something vaguely registers and he turns around to see what that faint noise is. Thing is his headphones weren't even the in-ear type. They were just turned up to the max.

The guys in the moving van jumped out of their skins though...

(I've never AZ'd a pedestrian before. On paths they have right of way and I've never had a problem on the road so far).

wexford wrote:I wave him off and call out "can you back off please" and continue. Shortly after I see he's still there, so I call out "can you either pass me or back off, I don't want you on my wheel". 200m later and he's STILL there, so I pull over and brake. He comes up besides me and asks me what my problem is? What?!

you're doing it wrong! you start out with the elbow flick, and if that doesn't get a response, you sit up and ask if they're going to work with you. if they still won't work, you ease off and start throwing in attacks to shake them off your wheel

wexford wrote:I wave him off and call out "can you back off please" and continue. Shortly after I see he's still there, so I call out "can you either pass me or back off, I don't want you on my wheel". 200m later and he's STILL there, so I pull over and brake. He comes up besides me and asks me what my problem is? What?!

you're doing it wrong! you start out with the elbow flick, and if that doesn't get a response, you sit up and ask if they're going to work with you. if they still won't work, you ease off and start throwing in attacks to shake them off your wheel

Jules - you are right again for the quick people. For the slugs like me its the snot rocket, the methane burst, and the zigzag (if safe).

Melrose Drive northbound this morning in the vicinity of the Lutheran Church at Woden. A almost change my shorts moment.

2 lanes of traffic and me in my bike lane. there were 2 indianey looking dudes standing on the grass ahead of me waiting to cross the road. i could hear the traffic noise behind me quieten as i assume most of the cars had past me already. I'm looking directly at these chaps doing about 30 kmph and suddenly one steps off the gutter right into the bike lane when i was approximately 15 feet in front of him.

"LOOOOKKKOOUTTTTT" I scream and grab my brakes. He casually realises his mistake and steps backwards up to the gutter. I was SOOOOO close to hitting him it wasn't funny and it could've done some serious damage to both of us.

InTheWoods wrote:Pedestrian with headphones on wandering all over the road (a road, not a path). Road is one way with a high rock face on one side, and a moving van parked on the other side plus a footpath, so only about 2 meters of road space left. Pedestrian almost takes out cyclist in front of me by randomly suddenly angling towards the rock face (maybe he saw a nice rock). You'd think he'd then not walk in the middle of the road and pay a bit more attention. But then he goes left. And then right as I'm approaching.

AZ time

...and he doesn't hear it from 2 feet behind him After a while something vaguely registers and he turns around to see what that faint noise is. Thing is his headphones weren't even the in-ear type. They were just turned up to the max.

The guys in the moving van jumped out of their skins though...

(I've never AZ'd a pedestrian before. On paths they have right of way and I've never had a problem on the road so far).

I don't know if it was an AirZound or something else but a cyclist on the Yarra Trail near the Walmer Street bridge pressed their (what I thought was) an AZ very quickly (less than 0.5 of a second) behind me to give me a friendly warning that he was going to pass me (I was running at the time in the same direction as him and already knew he was coming). It didn't sound that loud but it was audible. Does it take time to warm up to full sound or was it some other type of horn? It was quite a friendly sound and he waved thanks as he went past. I usually keep to the left and move across even further left when I know they're coming but the talk on here about AZs and how loud they are made me think "That wasn't so bad".

Summernight wrote:I don't know if it was an AirZound or something else but a cyclist on the Yarra Trail near the Walmer Street bridge pressed their (what I thought was) an AZ very quickly (less than 0.5 of a second) behind me to give me a friendly warning that he was going to pass me (I was running at the time in the same direction as him and already knew he was coming). It didn't sound that loud but it was audible. Does it take time to warm up to full sound or was it some other type of horn? It was quite a friendly sound and he waved thanks as he went past. I usually keep to the left and move across even further left when I know they're coming but the talk on here about AZs and how loud they are made me think "That wasn't so bad".

Harbour esplanade about 1050 today, there's this touristy sort of group (can't remember the name ) trundling along like a bunch of stoned sheep on their fat tyred, suspended eBikes all over the pedestrian area with a perfectly good bike only path not 10 metres east of them, a bike only path that was near filled with peds taking refuge from this group.

Note, I don't really include the group itself in the dumb category but the uniformed sheep in the lead, well...

...whatever the road rules, self-preservation is the absolute priority for a cyclist when mixing it with motorised traffic.London Boy 29/12/2011

Summernight wrote:Does it take time to warm up to full sound or was it some other type of horn? It was quite a friendly sound and he waved thanks as he went past. I usually keep to the left and move across even further left when I know they're coming but the talk on here about AZs and how loud they are made me think "That wasn't so bad".

if you just bleep the trigger, you won't get full volume. takes a good press to get it at full volume.

saw a dumb cyclist tonight. he was stopped in the middle of a lane whilst crossing the road looking back at his 3 mates. not moving. car waiting was not impressed. all I could do was shake my head.

Lukeyboy wrote:Before christmas a large plate glass window fell onto the road at an intersection. Still there today. Just broken into small bits (still some large parts) pushed into the pedestrian strip in the median, 20-25m spread out, on top of the median, slowly making its way across into the opposite lanes and now small bits are in the bike lane as my light lit them all up last night. Its a bloody busy intersection too. Yet there's been 2 or 3 street clearners go down my quiet little street in both directions this year. Must be voting time or something

Lukeyboy wrote:Pretty sure I did on the 3rd or the 4th after I came across it. I'll send it again just incase it was an error on my end. The intersection is Sandgate Road as you turn into Nundah Village.

this mornings dumb cyclist overtakes late leaving little margin for error then skids to avoid running into the girlfriend ahead.I followed for a while, watched him pull a few risky passes on othercyclists (overtaking on blind bends) only to wear himself out and pullover a kilometer later [youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=88GpCp9S54o[/youtube]

So heres the context. I got my bike about a month ago - first one I'd ridden in about 14 years. I rode it for 6 days before being cut off by a car, screwing up my breaking, and going over the handlebars, ripping my leg to bits and sustaining a very minor quadriceps tear.Three weeks off the bike - and if nothing else, that 3 weeks gave me no option but to be patient, and actually get the safety gear (high viz jersey, lights etc) that I shouldve had before riding at dusk (which is when the accident was).

I can't ride very far yet - as my username suggests, I'm huge. Actually, I discredit myself - I'm 40kgs lighter than I was in September, but only half way to where I need to be, and only 40% into where I would love to be. Despite that weightloss, and a lot of swimming/gym work and dietary changes to get me there, I'm still not very fit.So yesterday was my first ride back. It was only 5km, but I felt good! (I felt even better for the fact that I timed it with part 2 of the Armstrong interview that I was too angry to watch after part 1!)

I'm 8km into a ride - and I can already feel the difference that quitting smoking and doing a lot of pool work over the last month while unable to ride has made. I'm flying down a hill - Strava segment (why else?!) - I see a guy with his 2 kids right at the T-Junction at the bottom of the hill. I ring my bell from a good 75m away and start to slow down (booooo!) - he grabs his kids, moves them off the path... then when I'm 20 metres away, one of the kids comes back onto the path... RIGHT in front of me. Hit the rear brakes (learned my lesson!) managed to go round the kid... but didn't quite pull up and ended up hitting the railing on the other side of the t-junction at very, very low speed. I flipped over the rail, but I was going so slow I pretty much landed on my feet.

So, no injury, no damage to the bike... but ruined my ride. And dad? He admonished the kid for not being careful - and did not even turn around to see what had happened to me, much less ask me whether I was ok.Ruined my ride... I got up, dusted myself off, told old mate that he best remove his kids from both lanes of the bike path (or slightly less polite words to that effect...) and just had a very slow, easy ride home. I was bummed out... I rode 16km, which is a good effort for me. But I really felt like I couldve gone twice that far. I felt great, I was breathing well, I had that really enjoyable pain in my legs from a couple of little climbs. On top of all of that, the barometer of how I'm going - my water bottle - had only been accessed once, and I wouldn't have drunk 20% of it.

So frustrating! I crash on roads because cars can't see me - I crash on bike paths because stupid, ignorant pedestrians dont care that its a BIKE path, not a teach-your-stupid-kids-to-ride-a-tricycle-and-block-the-whole-thing path.The good news is, I think by the time I can afford to order a clamp rack and a bag next weekend, and by the time it gets here, all I should really have to deal with are other cyclists on the ride to work, because if nothing else, tonights ride was enough to tell me that I'm close to being able to ride to work, even if its only every second day to begin with. (I do need to work on steering in a straight line though, lest I become the dumb cyclist. I also need to work on speed, but I know that'll come with fitness/stamina)

fatdudeonabike wrote:I'm flying down a hill - Strava segment (why else?!) - I see a guy with his 2 kids right at the T-Junction at the bottom of the hill. I ring my bell from a good 75m away and start to slow down (booooo!) - he grabs his kids, moves them off the path... then when I'm 20 metres away, one of the kids comes back onto the path...

Well done with the weight loss. Strava on a shared path = don't do it, or at least stop strava-ing if you see anybody else on it, especially kids. It is a path, not a racetrack.

InTheWoods wrote:Fingy what did he say to you, I couldn't understand it?

After I said "watch what you are doing" he replied "I am watching what I am doing pal, you just watch your-self allright" then he said some thing else I couldnt quite hear. I think it was some kind of insult or threat it was amusing what ever it was, just hiswhole conduct and cranky demeanor.I thought about riding along side and asking for some clarification while I was followinghim but my annoyance subsided, and when he had expired I passed and continued toenjoy the morning.

I just lost a bit of concentration was all... I don't think its actually my braking that I need to work on, it's my rage and my concentration. When I thought I was going to pull up in time, I looked around and checked the kids were ok, and was about to give dad a serve. I wouldve pulled up comfortably engaging the front brakes (safely!) if I hadve just maintained my concentration and not prioritised having a go at the silly knobhead that did the right thing, got his kids out of the way... and then just stopped watching them.

And in fairness to me, there was nothing I couldve done about the first crash... yes, I braked to hard, and I didn't have all the safety gear I needed, but when a car looks like it sees you, but then speeds up to go round the corner and cuts you off, passing 2 metres in front of you... well, I think that, even with 10 years of experience on a bike, I'd probably do the same thing - brake as hard as I can. Going over the handlebars, tearing a quad and grazing up my leg has to be better than going into the side of a car at 30km/hr.

Its a shared path. Kids do unexpected things, even with supervision. The onus is on you to avoid an accident on shared paths as cyclists are required to give way to pedestrians (no exceptions). Given kid's lack of experience, awareness and judgement, if you hit one at speed, the blame would be entirely on you. If there are kids on the path, crawl past them - you just don't know what they are going to do, even if they know you are there. Cyclists blasting past kids just become of some dumb strava segment are being highly irresponsible and no better than motorists who drive unsafely around us because they are in a hurry to get to the shops/school/next red light.

Re braking. Practice using your front brake as you will stop a lot faster than using your rear. Its just a matter of getting your weight back over the rear wheel, making sure you resist the braking force with your arms so you don't put yourself over the bars, and not braking so hard the rear wheel lifts off the ground and you flip over the bars. There may be times when rear wheel braking is better in the circumstances, but if you are just trying to stop as fast as possible, front wheel will win by a big margin every time.

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